


More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

by x_los



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Evil Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, F/M, Family, Mutual Pining, Mutually Unrequited, Pining, Unrequited Love, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 02:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20074768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: Master Fu chooses Adrien as his Chat Noir because he's a dedicated, mature, compassionate boy. And those are precisely the reasons Gabriel Agreste chooses to share his plans with his son. After all, Emilie is important to both of them.





	More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

The same qualities that led Master Fu to entrust Adrien Agreste with the black cat miraculous led the boy’s father, later that very day, to share his own secrets. They stood before a painting of the Adrien’s mother, and Gabriel rested his thin hands on the boy’s shoulders. They’d just had a serious discussion about Adrien’s schooling, and his son’s earnestness and maturity had touched him. Perhaps it had been wrong of him to want to keep this from Adrien, when Emilie was equally important to them both.

“Touch the swirl, just there,” Gabriel said, and Adrien spread his fingers as though he was playing piano, keying the sequence. 

In a cavernous, temple-like room, Gabriel explained his plan to Adrien, whose reverent hand hovered above his mother’s face, separated from her cheek by glass and the cubic foot of compressed highly oxygenated gas keeping her alive.

“Couldn’t we just tell them why we need it?” Adrien said. “Couldn’t we just say that everything should go back to normal afterwards?”

Gabriel sighed, because Adrien was like Emilie—too trusting. “She wouldn’t even be in this state, if the Guardians had been willing to share their knowledge in good faith.” 

Adrien swallowed. “What does it look like? This thing we have to get for her?” His eyes narrowed as his father described the variety of forms it might take, and he pulled something he’d found earlier that day out of his pocket.

“Father. Could it—do you think it could look like this?”

***

The first confrontation horrified Fu, who feared he’d once again made a monumental mistake. And yet an unaltered certainty sat in his gut, where his chi pooled with the matured vitality of almost two centuries of life. He’d made his choices for good reasons, and he trusted to fate. Eventually, the wheel of fate would turn. This was for the best—what looked like a disaster would, in the fullness of time, be revealed as serendipity.

Knowing that didn’t make waiting for it to happen easier.

***

Marinette hadn’t initially assumed the brash monster marshalling the akuma victim was human. It was a shock to realise he must be some child her own age, and in his right mind, besides—or what he called one, anyway. And he and Hawkmoth certainly had their routine down. The unseen mastermind puppeteered the victims and caused chaos while kitty here tried, taunting and fast, to rip the Miraculous from Marinette’s body. Puss-in-leather-boots figured out quite quickly that he should go for her earrings, and she reasoned from that to aim for his ring. Every confrontation felt nearly impossible, even after Master Fu introduced himself to her and enabled her to call on comrades.

The boy was determined. He had some kind of training she didn’t. And worst of all, he combined a self-righteous assurance that the horrible things he did were justified with a nasty, flirting insouciance that stung like nettles. God, she hated Chat Noir, worse than any akuma victim his master Hawkmoth threw at her. After all, they were being taken advantage of. Chat Noir was the one taking that advantage: he chose to do this. 

Of course she’d thought the flirting was complete crap. Why _wouldn’t_ it be? So she’d stared at him like he was insane when he’d told her, in a decimated office building, both of them bleeding and panting (she’d thrown him through a window; he’d grabbed her wrist so she’d come along for the ride), that one day this would be over, and she’d _see_, and she’d understand, and she’d come to feel about him the way he felt about her. The way he’d felt about her from the very beginning. 

“Homicidal?” she dead-panned, and he’d actually flinched, that awful smile cracking before it resettled. 

“You and I were meant to be,” he said, and for the first time she realised that the tone was the only thing about what he’d said that was light and careless. The rest—he absolutely meant. “I know you’re doing what you think is right. I never _blame_ you, my Lady. I wish I could _tell_ you. I wish you could trust me. But Hawkmoth has his reasons.” 

“News to me,” Ladybug spat, wiping the blood off her lip with her fist and hoping Alya and Nino had disabled the akuma victim. 

To Adrien Agreste, this whole mad endeavour was about family. Bringing him close to his father. Bringing his mother back to them both. Bringing him, through incidental serendipity, close to the girl he wanted, more than anything, to make his own family with one day. There were millions of people in Paris, and billions in the world, and in all that raging, busy life, magic and fate had bound them together. She was the only one for him, their matched powers a signifier of their matched souls. Ladybug was ranged against him now, but one day she wouldn’t be. She’d apologise for all this, and he’d tell her the truth: that even fighting her had been the best part of his life, and he wouldn’t have given it up for anything. They would spend the rest of their lives soothing every wound they’d ever given one another, and he’d relax, at last, into being hers. Her supporter, her knight. He couldn’t tell her all that yet, but he had to at least say he loved her. It was the least of what he meant.

A message from Alya let Marinette know she needed to stall him (she was the only one of them capable of handling Chat Noir in a fight). That was fine with her. She had a piece of her mind to give Chat Noir anyway.

“For the record, I’m taken.” She wasn’t _with_ Adrien, true, but she’d set her heart on him—like, set-in-stone, set. She’d respect Chat Noir’s crush more if the insincere, vicious smart-ass didn’t make _Chloe_ look pleasant.

Chat Noir blinked huge, luminous green eyes at her, two fingers slipping off his pole.

“You’re—what?”

“Spoken for. In love. How many synonyms do you want?”

“A name would be nice,” Chat Noir snapped. “Since you’re in such a giving mood.”

She snorted. As if she would endanger Adrien and her own cover. “You’ve given _me_ nothing but bad luck since you crossed my path. All you need to know is that he’s wonderful. There’s no one kinder. Cleverer, more thoughtful—” Marinette could feel her cheeks heating despite herself, and knew her expression must be softening in the dopey manner she sometimes caught in the mirror when she'd been daydreaming about Adrien. She coughed and focused. “If you want a description of him, the best I’ve got is that he’s nothing at all like you.”

Behind Chat’s head, something exploded. It was the signal Ladybug had been waiting for. She vaulted over her distracted opponent, and if his unexpectedly wretched expression made her stumble, she recovered quickly enough.

***

Adrien usually told his mother how the mission had gone. He liked to sit with her, in that quiet underground garden. Just to be near her. It was really peaceful. Besides, Hawkmoth—_father_ had said that even like this she might be able to recognise their voices, or that someone was speaking to her. Her brain waves did ambiguous, promising jumps on the monitor when Adrien told her about school. His friends. How he’d accidentally destroyed the Eiffel Tower, again.

He didn’t feel up to it today. He pressed his cheek to the cool glass, and was ashamed when he started to cry. He hated his own childish weakness, but it was all so difficult and frustrating, and he was so tired. And Ladybug, who he’d hoped felt something for him, who he’d sometimes even hoped understood their situation like he did, hated him. He’d have thrown himself off a building untransformed for her if he could, and she _hated_ him. And she was _in love_. With someone who no doubt had the luxury of treating her like she should be treated. Some lucky little bastard who didn’t have a maman stuck in a box and a father who hardly let him out of his, who didn’t have to worry about fucking fencing lessons and Tibetan magical codexes and living up to Gabriel Agreste’s expectations. _God_ Adrien wanted to be kind and clever and thoughtful for her, _to_ her—in her perfect, blue eyes. 

When Adrien had cried it out, he slipped from his suit back into his regular clothes. He tossed a chunk of cheese in the air for Plagg (who was always cheerful after a good bout of destruction, even if Ladybug did muck things up by fixing them again). Adrain fished out his civilian phone and smiled at a message from Marinette. She’d shared the notes for the lesson he’d missed the end of due to heading home after the akuma attack. Marinette had slipped away as well (school policy said you could head home after an attack, if you didn’t feel capable of continuing on with classes), but had contacted Miss Bustier afterwards, and had thought to send the day’s homework on to him. 

“Marinette’s such a good friend,” he muttered to his mom, still leaning against her casket. “I don’t deserve her.” 

“You should do something nice for her,” Plagg hummed, smacking his lips to taste the last of the Camembert he’d inhaled. “In my experience, cheese is always appreciated—”

_Not by Ladybug_, Adrien thought sourly, wincing at the memory of his own weak jokes and her icy reception thereof. But he didn’t want to talk about it. 

“I should think of something, yeah.” Marinette was so creative and considerate. She could make something wonderful out of nothing, and she didn’t give up easily. Marinette could make a hat _Adrien’s father_ approved of out of _pigeon feathers_. Adrien found that unexpectedly bracing—even inspiring. If she could do that, with hard work and vision, maybe someday Adrian could make Ladybug see _him_—see the man he was trying to become. Maybe it didn’t matter that she didn’t understand, yet. Maybe one day they'd laugh about all this. The course of true love never did run smooth.

The Shakespeare reminded him—le Théatre du Chatelet had given his father free tickets to a gala performance he’d designed a costume for. Gabriel would never actually attend himself, but he could probably be convinced to let Adrien go on an excursion so markedly cultural. It wasn’t the sort of thing Nino would be into, but maybe Marinette would like the spare ticket. Adrien didn’t really want to go alone, but it’d be nice, with her. And it would be a good way of saying thank you to a good friend. 

And maybe one day Ladybug would let him say sorry, and thank you, and that he cared about her without laughing in his face. 


End file.
